ETS TECH NEWS
By Scott Harrison, RCDD
Alamon is embracing the future by using technology to our advantage. Leveraging the skills and equipment we have in-house, we are able to improve the quality of our installations and save time and money.
A recent example is at the Veterans Hospital in Reno NV where Alamon is upgrading the communications infrastructure system throughout the facility as a part of the Electronic Health Records Management initiative. This is a decently large medical campus with multiple old buildings, which present challenges when it comes to running the 6,000+ Category 6A cables that we are installing as a part of the project. In particular, overhead passage through firewall typically requires us to cut our own access holes and install a firewall sleeve to meet NEC code and the government specified standards. The typical solution would be to utilize a product like an EZ-Path sleeve.
The Challenge
EZ-Path Sleeve
While it certainly meets the requirements, the EZ-Path sleeve also poses a couple of problems, notably the expense of buying them and the time it takes to install them. Cutting a square hole through a lath and plaster wall overhead in a ceiling requires a vibratory saw, careful measurements on both sides of the wall as the square holes need to be aligned pretty closely for the sleeve to go through the wall properly and then you have to fire caulk it afterwards. Each one takes the better part of 30 minutes (actual average time is around 25 minutes) to install and each sleeve costs approximately $120. Over the course of this job, we could easily use 200 or more sleeves, adding up to a project expense of more than $20,000 for the sleeves. Fortunately, we found a better way to solve this problem.
THE PROJECT: Upgrading the communications infrastructure system at VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System in Reno, Nevada.
The Solution
ETS 3D Printer
Alamon purchased its own 3-D printer earlier this year and has put it into production printing consumable products such as conduit sleeve caps and ty-wrap cleats at a considerable savings over purchasing them through distribution or worse yet, sending someone to Home Depot to buy them.
Our resident engineering guru James Presnell has designed several unique prototypes that we look to move into production shortly, such as a Resi-Drill holster for UTVs that will save wear and tear on these expensive tools (not to mention repair costs and downtime).
We decided that replicating our own custom design for a conduit flange would be another viable use of this technology, so we got to work.
Step 1: Design
We started with random samples of 2” EMT conduit and taking measurements of the outside diameter so that we could make a flange that should fit any trade-sized conduit manufactured and sold in the US.
Once we had that measurement, we generated a CAD drawing, which we sent to the printer. We were able to generate the CAD file in roughly five minutes as it was a fairly simple design and I am proud to say that we got it right on the first try, as our first run product fit perfectly on the conduit.
Step 2: Printing
The printing process itself is an “additive” process where a plastic filament is heated to the point that it will flow out an extrusion head that is mounted to a three-axis frame and the computer sends instructions to move it precisely according to the drawing’s coordinates, a layer at a time, starting from the bottom and constructing itself upwards until its finished. This product takes about three hours to print and costs about $0.83 in material. There is no comparable product available for purchase. The materials themselves are available in a wide variety of composites, including fire-rated filament that would be acceptable for an above ceiling environment.
While we are producing this right now for deployment out to Reno, we are already working on “version 2”, which will include saw teeth on the end of the flange so that it self-cuts its own hole through drywall by applying a twisting motion by hand.
Since we were printing the flanges, we decided to go ahead and print the end caps as well. We went a little deeper on the design on the caps, with beveled edges so that the cables running through pass smoothly and don’t have a sharp edge that could damage the cables. The cost of the end caps is about $0.76 each and takes about two and half hours to print vs buying commercially available conduit bushings at about $4.50 each. In addition, we cut 2” EMT conduit to the appropriate length. Conduit costs approximately $4.00 per foot and each sleeve is usually about one foot long for passing through a standard wall.
Step 3: What We Learned
Production of these sleeves is mostly limited to the time we spend cutting conduit, as we can set the printer to run multiple units at a time and the only labor involved is pushing the “start” button on the printer and then opening the door so that we can remove the finished products once the print run is complete.
CAD drafting time for this particular product was minimal and shipping of this product verses the EZ-Path sleeves is a wash as both need to be shipped somewhere, except that our sleeves ship in a smaller and lighter package.
In testing the finished product, we found that we can install one of these sleeves by attaching a 2” extended hole saw bit to a drill, drill the hole through the wall so that it clears the far side of the wall, pass the conduit through it and then apply a bead of fire caulk around the backside of each flange and slide it over the conduit. The fire caulk acts as a glue that will help hold the sleeve firmly in place. To finish the installation, just put the end caps on each side. The total time in testing was approximately 3 minutes.
By producing our own sleeve at a nominal cost of $7.18, we save approximately $113 on the cost of each sleeve plus we can install it in rough 25% of the time it takes to install an EZ-Path sleeve. This will add up to significant saving over the course of the Reno, NV project.
We believe that there are many similar opportunities to employ this type of technology across the spectrum of Alamon services, and we have the talent on staff to generate many of our own designs and products. If you have an idea for a unique solution that could be field deployed, please do not hesitate to bring it to our attention.
